I, for one, would like to see this hemi version of the sleeve-valve enigne.
It would be possible to produce a hemispherical combustion chamber in a
sleeve-valve engine as the engine has the valves on the sides of the
cylinder walls. It would be a simple matter of machining a domed cumbustion
chamber with domed pistons. All the drawings I have seen of Willys's
sleeve-valve engines show a recessed chamber for the spark plug, but the
pistons are cupped, not domed. So these drawings do not show a hemi engine.
However, the sleeve-valve engine was not a Willys design, who was a salesman
not an engineer,. It was designed by one Charles Knight with a
production-ready, patented design by 1907. He sold licences for his
patented engine and Willys gained the rights to produce and sell Knight
sleeve-engined cars when he acquired the Edwards Motor Car Co., Long Island,
New York in 1914 along with its Knight licence. Although Willys did
produce a V8 Knight sleeve-valve engine in the late teens, his next engine,
a six, was gained by acquiring the Sterling-Knight company in 1925. He
also acquired Stearns-Knight in 1926.
The last Willys-Knight was built for 1933, just about the time the Knight
patents expired. The Knight engine was more popular with expensive makes,
suich as Minerva and Mercedes, as well as Daimler who built their last
Knight-engined car in 1939.
By the way, the first car to use a Knight sleeve-valve engine was the
British Daimler car in 1908. Russell of Toronto, Canada, acquired a license
in 1910, while some other American firms were Stoddard-Dayton (1911),
Columbia (1911) Atlas/Lyons (1912), R & V Knight, and Handley-Knight (1921),
Walter Chrysler, though, never owned Willys-Overland. He was in charge of
the company during 1919-21 as a contractor of the banking syndicate that put
Willys into bankruptcy proceedings. To my knowledge Chrysler put no money
into the Willys-Knight, instead working on improving the Overland and
developing the first Chrysler This Chrysler was not the Chrysler Model B
that was introduced in 1924, but the Model A that was sold off at auction in
1921 to one William C. Durant. This Chrysler formed the basis for Durant's
Flint car.
When Chrysler left Willys he never looked back at the Knight engine. He
stuck to "poppet" valve engines, producing in-line, side-valve versions.
The sleeve-valve design was a dead-end, being an oil burner, expensive to
build and not an easy engine to produce more power.
Bill
Vancouver, BC
----- Original Message -----
From: Paul J Dwaihy II
To: wwatson@xxxxxxxxx ; L-FORWARDLOOK@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2003 4:29 PM
Subject: FIRST HEMI
Gents,
You may want to check your history of the HEMI a wee bit more.... An
American Company called Willys-Overland -Knight was the first American
Company to produce a HEMI. During a conversation with a fellow gear head
in Auburn Mass. I (being from Detroit) learned something that history books
in the library confirmed. Essentially this Detroit "Motor City" boy got
"spanked" by a guy from Auburn, Mass.!! Willys pretty much came up with the
idea and were the first to produce a "sleeve valved" version. Well before
either Europe or Chrysler. W. P. Chrysler bought Willys ( and their
designs) and put his folks on them to "fine tune" the concept. Several
substandard versions later they got it right. But neither good ole' W.P.
nor his company were the first in either category, he purchased the idea
from Willys. Several Willys-Overland-Knight HEMI's can still be found in
operation today! Do a wee bit of research...and use it to frustrate the
overly confident ( like I was) HEMI pseudo effcianato's.
enjoy!
Paul from Detroit
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